


Look, It Sparkled!

by gsatochiba



Category: Batman - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, DC/Marvel crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsatochiba/pseuds/gsatochiba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn’t even on patrol.<br/>He was getting a chilidog for lunch down the street from his apartment at Bludhaven. The glowing ring lied unsuspiciously on the sidewalk beside the equally unsuspicious trashcan. He could feel every fiber in him screaming not to go near it, but damn his curiosity.  </p><p>Dick Grayson found himself in a strange land while his family found out that he was missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'll take the ring

Dick cursed himself for the millionth times in the past two month.  
His ears piked up a bit; hoping that if he'd just listen hard enough, he'd pick up Damian's voice.

_-TT- Grayson, stop whining. It’s unbecoming._

But no, nothing. And he cursed himself again. Damian didn’t exist here, none of them did.  
Not in the world he'd been inhabiting for the past two months anyways.  

He wasn’t even on patrol.  
He was getting a chili-dog for lunch down the street from his apartment at Bludhaven.  
The glowing ring lied unsuspiciously on the sidewalk beside the equally unsuspicious trashcan. He could feel every fiber in him screaming not to do it, but damn his curiosity.  
A blink later he found himself encompassed by the roars of not-far-enough explosions, heat rays and weapons and bullets coming and going to multiple directions. He bit into his chili-dog and lost the rest to a flip while he’s docking away from another wave of attack toward his direction. There were shouting and screaming, and some of them were definitely NOT HUMAN. HOLY FUCKSHIT WHAT IS THAT?  
  
_Fuckers looked like a myrmecia had swallowed a bodybuilding contest and decided to puke it out three days later._  
  
_So they are like...myrmen?_

 _There’s an army of them coming, focus._  
  
_Myrcenary, then._  
  
_-tt-_  
  
_They are pouring out from that hole in the sky._  
  
_Oh, well -_  
  
_Don’t you say it, little wing._  
  
It's not healthy to think in his brothers’ voices, let along having a whole conversation...while the city was under alien attack. He leaped into action before he knew it; quickly accessing the situation, flipping and hopping on to enemies’ hoverboards and started firing.

  
It was over quickly enough. He landed his ship at the foot of the skyscraper right beneath the now-disappeared hole in the sky. He looked up and see a single “A” on top of the building.

  
“Hey! You!”

  
He brought his gaze down and saw a man emerged from the building entrance.  
The man was shorter than him, but well built, with short blond spikes and a bow and arrows on his back.  
Dick recognized the man. They’d covered each other a few times while he was soaring through the city on stolen enemy’s artifact and the man was shooting out trick arrows Star-City-Style on top of a highrise.

  
“Good job out there.”

“Em, thanks.”  
  
The man’s easy smile relaxed Dick a bit, though he looked tired to his bones. He gave Dick a pad on the shoulder and walked toward the black SUVs that'd just pulled up.  
  
“Excuse me.” Dick heard himself called out.  
  
The man turned.  
  
“Where am I?”

 

That was two months ago. Two minutes of utter confusion led to two days of interrogation, followed by two weeks of tests and interviews and Tony Stark’s _wow parallel universe this is awesome you want a goji berry take a goji berry oh and this won’t hurt a bit_ , and times on training mats with American war hero and ex-Russian assassin, and here he was, two months after chilidog and unsuspicious glowing ring, in a SHIELD uniform, hiding behind an old RV for coverage with the first man he met in this world, wondering how anyone could have made such a mess out of his life.

Parallel universe, seriously, _you are way out of your depth, Grayson._

He’d given everything and anything he could to Tony Stark and Jane Foster.  
The ring was in his pocket and they had been running tirelessly to figure it out. He knew this. HE KNEW THIS but he couldn’t help to fidget in his seat: he got to go back. He got to go back to his world, his flock of Robins, Bruce and Alfred and Barbara and Cassandra, got to breath in that night air of and fly between city lights that looked like starts on earth.

He’d agreed to help Nick Fury because the man had agreed to help him in return.

“We could use a man like you, Grayson.” The director said and stared him down with no malice or cheat in his one eye.

“Stark, Dr. Foster and our science team will help to bring you home, but I think you know by now that the process might take longer then you’d like it to be.”

He was kind enough to not voice out the other possibility, but Dick could feel it weighing him down.

“Agent Barton could show you around, help integrate you into our world, make your temporal stay here as comfortable as it could be.”

  
And off he went, keeping his feet on this foreign ground, dodging bullets and alien technologies alike, telling himself that back at Gotham, his family would notice his absence and come looking for him. He didn’t know how long it would take them to have it figured out, but he had faith in them.

Because, he realized as he pulled himself through the thick layers of branches and leaves, knocking out Hydra footmen every steps of the way,

_faith was all he got._


	2. I'm more of a white dove kind of girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's magic. So they called her up.

The Batcave wasn’t a charming place to begin with – dark and quiet except for the distant sounds of waterfall; thousand of bats nested in the folds of rocks above a giant lake. It was made even more eerie now with the enormous monitor being the only source of light, casting a blue tint on everything it hit. There screen was split into segments: security footages, open files of documents, and a few talking heads, which, together with those occupying the cave at the moment, Zatanna concluded, were the pillars of Gotham’s vigilante operation.

 

Zatanna liked the Bats.

They were a melancholy, overdramatic, gallingly competent bunch, true, but in her eyes, she saw only a family that fight and love in equal perseverance, and she could never find it not enduring, even if it did so in a way that had broke her heart into pieces.

The Bats also, as they often did in various activities, scowled in unison.

As of this moment, the current Robin and Red Robin both had their brows locked in mirrored expressions, starring down in unison at the man seated beside Zatanna, whom she now, after three weeks of intensive research in magical theories and mythical artifacts, followed by numerous heated debates involving shouting from multiple parties, a few batarangs, a highly effective hex on her part, and a pissed-off butler, referred to, simply, as the Scowl Master.

The world might also know him as Batman.

Being the master of all defensive arts, Batman was giving his protégés his best poker expression, the kind indicating that there would be no further discussion on the matter at hand.

Being the protégés of the master of all defensive arts, the two Robins, tongue-tied, brows-tiedder, were just not backing down.  
Seriously, the amount of perseverance in this family would be the death of her.

As if on cue, the master of all offensive arts walked into the lights.

_Let's just get on with it._

_Jason._

_Hey, I’m not saying that this is not the worst idea ever - actually, it’s not; it’s pretty bad, but it’s not even the second worst._

_Jason._

_We need to go get Dicky, and if I know anything about this family’s luck when it comes to supernatural phenomenon, which, I do, we’re going to need more than one crooked old man with a busted knee to get him back, and like hell I'm gonna trust any of you to get this right._

_Did you say family?_

_Shut up, replacement._

_Ohnn, look at him trying to tough it up now._

_You, too, Brown._

_-tt- This is preposterous._

_Enough. None of you are going._

_Yes, Bruce. They are._

 

Over the course of her crime-fighting career, Zatanna had learned to associate Batman’s voice with commands; he reminded her the kings in his father’s bedtime stories, the kind that would, in a heartbeat, raised his arms against gods and monsters for the daft farmers resided in his kingdom without ever meeting them.

But not even Batman’s commands, as regel as each syllable was, could carry as much inevitability as a cough from Barbara Gordon.  
The Batman spoke, and it became the law; the Oracle chimed, and it was the truth.

 

_You can’t go, not in your condition. And Jason was right; we can’t send just one person into the unknown._

 

Batman’s jaw clenched and Zatanna knew the battle was done.

The boys would go, all three of them - because it was impossible to stop any of them from going, and also, Zatanna suspected, if the retrieving party did fail to come back... well, it might just be kinder that none of them was left _here_.  
Boys, by god, there were so many of them now.

She locked eyes with the red-hair on screen. It’s been too long, since they last looked at each other at eye level. Back then; it was just the three of them. She remembered vividly how Barbara’s hair would burn crimson under the city lights, flowing rivers of flame tailing behind her, and with Dick by her side, she’d looked invincible.

Now she just looked tired.

 

And Dick. Oh, _Dick._

She didn’t even know where to start with Dick.  
When they were dating, Dick was hot chocolate and snuggle blanket on a rainy day, slow kisses after a midday nap, and the joyful voice in her ears when they were fighting heavens and hells. After that, he remained one of her best friends, a ray of sunshine in her otherwise hellfire-lit world.  
Whether they admitted it or not, Dick Grayson was the sun for the Bats, and without him, the solar system was spinning out of orbit.

Three weeks ago, she was in mid-fight with a second-class demon. The celling of the building collapsed, and the demon exterminated. Superboy landed before her.

He flew her to the cave; Red Robin was waiting.  
It had taken them over a week to realize Dick Grayson was missing, and three months to rule out all other possibilities.  
She was their last resort.

It took them another sixty hours to retrieve the silver ring, which now rested in her palm. She turned and saw the three Robins covered in black. They dressed in dark Kevlar suits, jackets, with a black scarf on each of their necks; they'd packed light, not knowing where they were heading. Tim still had his bo, Damian with his katana, and Jason brought his knives and guns.

Barbara was there, too; together with Cassandra and Stephanie, they formed a palisade around Bruce, who’d been mostly silent.

He exchanged words with Tim, hugged Damian, and shook hands with Jason. It was a long shake - neither made a sound, just holding on. There was a brief second where Zatanna though they might never let go, and in that moment, she sworn on her father’s soul she would not fail them.

_Oh Dick, Dick, Dick. Look at your flock, fraying but still trying to fly._

 

Soon, the three Robins stood side by side with Zatanna by the lake in the cave.

_You’re sure about this?_

_We trust you._

_When you find him, he should have the other ring on him… any body of water would do… It’s very weak, but I can still feel the magic tugging from his side, and that’s where I’ll direct you to, but there’s no way to know if it was still in his procession, and we had to consider the fact that there might be more than two rings –_

_Zatanna._

Barbara was at her side, and she was smiling up at her.

Zatanna took in a deep breath and tamped down the butterflies in her throat.  
The boys all had their fists clenched. They were throwing bat-glares at the lake, like they could pry it opened with sheer force of will. 

Well, what the hell. She's the greatest, most wondrous magician across the seven seas. 

She closed her eyes, focusing on the hymn of magic in her palm. The ring glowed, and floated above the dark water, frosting it with stardust. The wave of magic washed over her like soft summer wind, and she gave them a nod.

 

Three small splashes later she opened her eyes.

The silver ring laid in her palms, seemingly ordinary and unmagical.

 

All was dark and quiet again.

 

 


	3. Reincarnation be damned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meanwhile...

The day didn’t start out badly.

Actually, the whole ordeal hadn’t turn out to be half bad.

It was chaotic at best but no less stimulating, and had proven to be endlessly amusing at times. Ah, the story of his life, reincarnation be damned.

Five days ago, a SHIELD helicopter showed up at the modest town he resided by the mountains, and asked him politely for his service. It had taken them longer than he thought it would; there were only a handful of individuals on this planet who’re familiar with the actual practice of intergalactic traveling, let along accessing to adjacent or parallel universes, and definitely none who’d known it as intimately as he did.

His former-self might have felt offended, but that was another lifetime ago and he boarded the aircraft willingly. He had the full intention to help this stray wonderer from another world, but he’d be lying to say curiosity hasn't played its course. 

He had dreaded the initiation, given the somewhat precarious relationships he shared with the various members of the expedition. By the time he stepped into Tony Stark’s lab in the Avenger’s Tower, where, clearly, the braintrust had been working on the ring, he’d already gone through all conceivable verbal counterstrategies should he found himself being challenged; seriously, if they did so pride themselves to be _the pinnacle of human achievements,_ they would see no logic of excluding _him, having the FUCKING MAGICAL RING OF WORMHOLE,_ as his lover once called it _, lied so explicitly within his field of study, his expertise –_

The pinnacle of human achievements simply stared.

Then Tony Stark curtsied, solemnly.

_Oh, the Queen has graced us with her presence._

_Please excuse him, he missed his nap and couldn’t find his favorite toy._

_By god, she jokes._

_I am certain that Dr. Foster was indeed telling the truth._

_By god, you joke, should have known though since –_

_It’s good to have you here._

He snapped his head to Bruce Banner so fast he tripped a little. The man with a monster inside had a not-hostile hand out for him to shake and he’d have taken it fervently if he’d been the kind of men who’d take things fervently. In stead, he mustered every ounce of grace he had, projected it to their shaking hands, and said in earnest, because by god, he _meant_ it –

_It’s good to be here._

_Yeah, good is the word. Settled. Now, goji berries?_

That night, Tony Stark ordered them pizzas with three-cheese stuffed crusts, opened bottles of immoderately priced wine, and convinced them to participate in what got to be the most preposterous round of Run and Draw ever existed, involving algorithms on quantum entanglement, theories of reincarnations, and a surprisingly well-executed drawing of a goat-zombie being chopped in half by an assault rifle with a chainsaw attached to its front.

The hangover was a nightmare. It was gratifying.

For five days, he’d been trying to extract, to explicate the magical signals the gold ring had been flinging out since it first arrived.  
Stark flew back to New York just before sunrise for a meeting, and he’d coaxed Jane to bed before he left;  
it was just him and Banner in the lab now.  
Well, them, and the ring, and that unlucky SHIELD agent who’d been assigned to “monitor them." Poor kid, probably hadn’t been in SHIELD a week longer than he had; now he’s locked in a room with a human time bomb and, well… him.

He felt for the kid on some level – if that jaw was clenched any tighter, he’d pop his own ears off – but apparently he hadn’t lost all the mischiefs in him, and if all the looks he’d been exchanging with Banner was anything to go by, neither had the good doctor.

Their eyes locked again, and he found himself smiling. They’d invite the kid to pizza tonight.

The day was looking to be a good one.

 

That was, of course, until the lab blew up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And, we're back.  
> This is the one where no one gets to finish his sentences.

_Great. This is great. This is Just. Great. You know what this is? Do. You. Know. What. This. Is?_

_Great?_

 

_I swear I will end you when this is all over._

_You can try, Todd._

_I need both of you to shut up. Now._

 

They are being shot at, for god's sake, Time cursed to himself, even though he should be used to being shot at. The tree were crouching behind discarded lab equipments and steel tables with black scarfs covering half of their faces. Jason was firing his gun along with Damian shooting out ninja stars back at their opponents; Tim had his hands busy on his pad, praying that the tables they were hiding behind would hold, at least until he cracked the security system. __  


 

_If you are not equipped to open a door, Drake, you are in need of professional help more than I thought._

_I’m trying, okay? Just keep quite, and keep shooting! And we’ll be out in…three…and a half minutes…_

_What? What the hell? You are supposed to be good at this! It’s just some 1 and 0, Babywing, I give you two!_

_It’s not just 1 and 0! This entire security system is written in a different language. A NEW language! Whomever made it must have invented it, and is running counter-attack on me now!_

_He’s hacking us?!_

_No! I’m hacking him – DAMIAN! WHAT?_

 

The guards’ bullets were still flying their way when Damian jumped over the two steel tables they were using as cover. The current Robin disarmed the closest two gunmen with his ninja stars, and knocked down the rest in one smooth sweep. The door on the far end opened, and more troops with heavy armor filed in, but Jason was ready for them.

Tim looked back down at his pad, lasered all his attention on the twisting gold letters, fingers typing in light-speed, and –

 

The door on their side slid opened.

 

_Jason! Damian!_

 

The two followed and Tim slammed the door shut behind them. Luckily, the corridor on this side was empty, for now. One side of the corridor was made entirely of glass facing another section of the facility, and the three backed away from it. The alarm was blaring red now. Jason kicked open the first door down the hall, and the three filed into an – thankfully – unoccupied bedding area for staffs. Tim worked on his pad in the dim light – he’d gained access to most of the security system: cameras, layouts, heat and movements’ detectors, doors…

He took in a deep breath.

 

_This won’t work._

_Drake, IF –_

_Damian, I’m not finished._

Damian bit down hard and stretch his lips into a thin line. He’d learn to recognize when Tim meant business – hell, they’d all learnt the million different tones one another could carry. Jason lowered his guns as well, looking intently at Tim.

 

_We can’t do this, not like this._

 

Damian’s jaw clenched and his cheeks turned slightly pink. Jason dropped his shoulders and did manage to look somewhat apologetic.

 

_Yeah, you’re right, you’re right… I probably shouldn’t have shot the guy._

_You acted on self-defense, and you didn’t kill him. It was I who’d pull the knife on the guards…it was my fault._

 

Tim stared at the pair; Jason, whose always filled with self-reliance, looked exasperated, and Damian, no longer a boy, whom used to coat all his feeling with rage, just looked plain sad. He immediately regretted his tone.

Really, he should be applauding them on how CALM the two had been over the past few months. God knew they were not. None of them were.

 

_Look, the ring led us here, so Dick must be somewhere close; even if he’s not, this place seems like the kind that’d have information on him, and I have an in to its system archive now. Let’s just get out of here before they roll in the tanks._

 

_Scared, Drake?_

_For them? Always._

_You two are so cute._

 

Footsteps and shouting approached. Tim inhaled audibly as both Jason and Damien turned to him - muscles tensing, awaiting for his instruction, his command to leap, to fight, to go in any direction he pointed them to. This was no longer something new, but it sill filled his blood with rich, golden warmth.

 

_We need to track down the two scientists in white – the ring, I saw them took it, there’s –_

 

The door of the chamber busted open and Jason knocked the first guy through the door to the floor with the back of his gun. Tim’s bo strucked the next two, and Damian was half way down the hall.

 

 _Helicopter Lot! South-west! NOW!_ Tim shouted as he landed another man.

 

But in the next instance, he found himself flying back with a handful of Damian. Jason caught them both with a grunt. Damian managed to land on his feet with that swift elegance he always carried, and no, Tim was not envious.

 

_What –_

 

And Jason cut himself off. A man stood in front of them – blond, strikingly handsome in a leather jacket, holding a round shield with what looks like an American Star on it – there’s something about him that had them all straighten their backs a bit. Tim couldn’t quite explain the feeling, but it was as though he’s fifteen again, and was being introduce to the League for the first time – the way the man set his shoulders, the glint in his eyes, and how he seemed to be clam and raged up all at once –

 

_Fucking superheroes everywhere._

 

Jason mumbles underneath his breath. And that’s it. Tim knew anyone in the family would sneer at the title of superhero, but he couldn’t look at the man and not think: he’s an ally. He’s one of us. The man's eye went from Jason's gun, to Damian's sword, to Tim.

 

_Who are you? And what do you want?_

 

Damian stole on glance at Tim, whereas Jason kept his gun pointed at the man.

 

_Look, Sunshine, we just gonna get what we’re here for, then we’ll be gone, and nobody gets hurt, capisce?_

 

_That’s not really promising coming from someone with a gun._

 

_Move, or you will be removed._

 

The man eyed Damian with a tint of, what? Concern?

 

_Isn’t today a school day?_

 

Damian hunched over slightly, readied himself.

 

_Wrong move, body._

 

Jason sounded almost amused. The man lowered his stance, his shell raised.

Tim put a hand on Damian’s shoulder.

 

_Wait. Okay. We –_

 

The celling crashed and Tim just had time to catch a dash of green before everything went black.


End file.
